Climate Common Sense is not a sceptical site but a non-believer's site .Global warming and cooling are natural phenomena and carbon dioxide is a lovely gas vital to plant growth. Global Warming has stopped and Climate Change ( I call it Weather) is the new manufactured bogeyman. This website will present a realist view on the Climate Change debate.

Monday, October 31, 2011

Does global warming cause more or less precipitation in winter. The "settled science" view was that snow was going to be "a thing of the past" until the record snow falls of the last couple of years and then warmists started singing from a different songbook. Now the warmer oceans are ostensibly putting more moisture into the air and it is being deposited as snow which is the new "settled science" explaining monster snow falls.

One of the fundamental tenets of the Labor government's argument for a carbon tax is that it will be part of a global market allowing carbon indulgences to be traded. Unfortunately for Gillard and her crew of carbonistas the Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird from a party which stood for election opposing such an impost on his country , has stated that there will be no carbon tax in Canada or the US in the foreseeable future. This means that all the major emitters such as the US, China, India and Japan will not be swapping carbon paper credits with the Aussies leaving us up sh*t creek without a paddle if we continue with a carbon tax.

Friday, October 28, 2011

The incredible waste of money on fundamentally stupid green schemes such as Solyandra in the US is being repeated in Queensland where ZeroGen , a "clean coal" company has gone belly-up with $116 million of tax-payers funds going up in smoke. Company executives were spotted fiddling overseas as taxpayer's funds were being burned and have now folded up their website along with the project. This is ,of course, the thin end of the wedge with the gormless Gillard providing 10 billion for more non-commercial "green" schemes which no one in the private sphere would dream of funding.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Gary Johns a former Labor minister delivers a withering attack on the green carpetbaggers and green capitalists who are ripping off society in the name of environmentalism. The green lobby wants more funds from our capitalist society while at the same time attacking energy production - the very means of generating that capital.

George Pell , the Archbishop of Sydney says that less religion and more evidence is required in the global warming debate. The Archbishop has long been a global warming sceptic , not afraid of controversy, and says that "the complacent appeal to scientific consensus is simply one more appeal to authority, quite inappropriate in science or philosophy".

Another day and another disastrous poll for the Gillard Government. A new Galaxy poll now has the Coalition with a huge 58 per cent to 42 per cent lead two-party preferred. The Coalition now has a 51 per cent primary vote with Labor stuck at 29 per cent. The gloss seems to be coming off Rudd as alternative leader dropping 7 per cent in two weeks.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

The World's Greatest Treasurer is off his trolley if he thinks Australia should get involved in the Eurozone mess.
Wayne Swan is reported to be discussing ways that resources can be made available to assist the Euro debacle.
The UK is now congratulating itself on not joining the Euro club and those who jeered at the decision now have egg on their faces. The European Parliament exercises power without real electoral responsibility and now is reaping the rewards of trying to balance the books for a gaggle of social welfare states living beyond their means. The Europeans nations are all big boys now and the damage to the European economy is self-inflicted.
The EU with it's growth of central regulation will continue to retard economic growth in the same way as the old USSR did and it seems we have learnt little from the collapse of Eastern Communism.
The Greeks have been having one long Xmas party for the last ten years on the Euro credit card and are now asking Germany to save them. Run like hell is my advice!

Friday, October 14, 2011

The carbon tax will collect an estimated 11 billion dollars and according to Gillard only 5 billion will be returned to taxpayers. The big question is who will pay the other 6 billion dollars. "Only the big polluters" brays Gillard as if these big "polluters" such as power stations will just cop the tax and not pass it on to consumers, stiffing their shareholders in the process. Yeah,right!
The real story is that the whole 11 billion is to be ripped from tax-payers one way or the other which is something Aussies intuitively know and this expensive income re-distribution scheme by Labor will fail.Jo Nova has examined the "benefits" of the Carbon Tax and the 10 Billion Green Fund!

The latest article in Joe Romm's Climate Progress reaches a new intellectual low which is difficult with all the competition on that site for the title. The claim is made that if the US was foolish enough to install solar at the same rate as the Germans then it would be a 100% solar utopia by 2026 with everyone's home completely powered by renewables except on cloudy days and at night and in the mornings and late afternoons. We could all pretend that the new fossil fueled power stations running 24/7 as backup don't exist in this Rommantic Green wonderland of the future. We could also pretend that the crippling cost of this part-time energy is OK because it is "green" and anyway US can borrow heaps more dollars from China for such a good cause and avoid using all that cheap coal like the silly Chinese are doing. .

The Germans have installed over 10,000 megawatts of solar panels in the past two years, enough to power 2 million American homes (or most of Los Angeles, CA). If Americans installed local solar at the same torrid pace, we could already power most of the Mountain West, could have a 100 percent solar nation by 2026, while enriching thousands of local communities with new development and jobs.

The following map shows what could have happened had the U.S. kept pace with Germany on solar power in the past two years (installed the same megawatts on a per capita basis). Sunshine could power 10 states!

It is claimed that 10 million jobs would be created by such a solar industry although there is little detail on who would be paying these extra workers as we would still need all our fossil fuel workers as well to provide the real power. Maybe the Chinese credit card could be swiped for that as well.

Such local solar power also provides enormous economic benefits. For every megawatt of solar installed, as many as 8 jobs are created. But the economic multiplier is significantly higher for locally owned projects, made possible when solar is built at a local scale as the Germans have done.

With local ownership, making America a 100% solar nation could create nearly 10 million jobs, and add as much as $450 billion to the U.S. economy.

The Germans have found the profitable marriage between their energy and environmental policy. It’s time for America to discover the same.

The guest article becomes too much for even Romm himself and he says that maybe a smidgen of nuclear or natural gas power will be required to "keep the lights on". Romm also states that Germany , the shining example , "isn't even very sunny" without seeing the stupidity of installing solar in such a low insolation environment.JR: I would note that Germany isn’t even very sunny compared to most of the United States. Now I’m not one to say solar can or even should have to power the country by itself. We’ve got hydro, of course. And I don’t have a problem keeping those nukes running for baseload. And some natural gas to assist with demand response in keeping the lights on.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Mortal political enemies Gillard and Rudd share an uncomfortable kiss after the passing of the Carbon Tax legislation. A year ago Gillard knifed Rudd to take over the leadership and now Rudd is poised to return the favor!
Meanwhile Joe Hockey , shadow treasurer, says that Labor will have to rethink it's stand on the tax repeal if the Coalition achieves a large majority. Traditionally in Australia oppositions do not oppose legislation for which there is a clear mandate.

The Union of Concerned Silly Scientists have their own graphic showing CO2 and nasty urban aerosols as the major drivers and that huge molten yellow ball in the sky is shown as pretty irrelevant. Notice that ocean oscillations do not even get a mention!

However as the world is now cooling (which in Warmspeak is warming masked by whatever they can think of at the time ) these scientists are now back-flipping ,saying that CO2 warming is masked by the falling sun output which was irrelevant (yesterday's version ) but now is important in the settled science (today's version).

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The free market is a remarkable organism where buyers determine what products are manufactured and sold and it tends to be efficient when left to it's own devices. Grist has an article stating that solar PV is becoming the cheapest way to generate electricity and they know because someone gave them a stack of un-enclosed cells and they were small. The idiots think that you can equate KWhrs generated by solar over a few sunny hours to KWhrs consumed 24/7 by a household . Electricity generated by solar is undispatchable and therefore unsaleable and no electricity grid would buy it unless they were forced to by regulation. All the power stations are on line anyway to cater for loss of sunlight so it is hard to say that solar power is any sort of option let alone the cheapest. The writer was "baffled" by the fact that $700 dollars of silicon can produce a lifetime of household electricity but if he disconnected his solar house from the grid he would soon be "baffled " by the fact that he would not have power most of the time. He is also impressed that solar installations in Germany have dropped the feed-in tariff from TWELVE times generation cost to FOUR times generation cost for this unmarketable power which no one wants . He also thinks highly of Germany for installing so much solar when" Germany is not very sunny" when that is the very reason Germany should not be doing it.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

The Big Green propaganda machine is going full steam as questions are rightly being asked about the mad rush to so-called clean power in the wake of the Solyandra train wreck. "It is different in Australia" and " you can not always get it right" is part of an article in the SMH by Kane Thornton of the Clean Energy Council .

There is no doubt the US government backed the wrong horse when it funded Solyndra, a major solar manufacturer that received more than $500 million in loans from the US government. But anyone who has been in the investment game for the long haul knows you don't always get it right. The world's third-richest person, Warren Buffett, has backed the wrong horse plenty of times. The trick is to spread the risk so that the wins eclipse the losses. Investors around the world are banking on clean energy being a big winner overall and bringing home the bacon.The trick is to spread the risk so wins eclipse the losses.

It is complete idiocy to compare Warren Buffet's investment philosophy using private funds to the Obama regime's wanton waste of funds borrowed on the tax-payers credit card. Big Green Investors around the world are rushing the "clean industry " bandwagon so they can get their snouts in the public trough. Wins and losses apply to race betting and anyone who thinks a Government board will make better investment decisions than the private sector has rocks in his head. If the investment made sense no government funds would be necessary and if it doesn't make sense we shouldn't be doing it.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

The Gillard government plan to send $600 billion dollars of taxpayer's money overseas to buy paper carbon credits is criticised by Ziggy Switkowski in the Australian who says that the money could be better spent .
With the recent 7 billion dollar Carbon Credit fraud in the EU, buying overseas carbon credits makes as much sense as investing in a Ponzi scheme but it will probably wont deter the feckless fools in Canberra.

The Gillard government faces tens of billions of dollars in losses due to botched legislation allowing companies to claim huge deductions for takeovers dating back nearly a decade. It seems that the World's Greatest Treasurer Wayne Swan has delegated the worst tax error in living memory to Assistant Treasurer Bill Shorten for clean-up. . The Australian public would do well to remember that this is the same bunch of incompetents asking them to believe they are right in carbon tax calculations .In the private sector errors of this enormity would warrant instant dismissal as in the recent cases involving traders who made losses for their banks. Swan should take responsibility and resign immediately because as minister he is responsible.

The University of Western Australia has backed away from hosting a debate on the effects of Global Warming by saying that the former head of the national Climate Centre for 12 years William Kinnemoth was not credible! Also failing the credibility test was mathematician and engineer Dr David Evans who worked for 6 years for the Australian Greenhouse Office modelling carbon in Australia's environment. Only the most cynical would think the real reason for banning these speakers is global warming skepticism.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

The Nanny State award winner this week is clearly Denmark where the government is applying a "fat tax" on foods such as butter and milk because they contain saturated fats. This intrusion into the daily life of citizens is obviously needed because Danes are obviously incredibly stupid and not able to work out what they should and shouldn't eat. The worst thing is that other governments are going to think this is a great idea and the grocery shelves will become another shining example of political correctness with eye-catching displays of wholemeal bread,unprocessed grains and tofu!

Saturday, October 1, 2011

The continued attack by ill-considered warmist policies on coal-fired power stations in Queensland has caused a billion dollar write-down in value for these energy companies which supply nearly all the electricity for our communities. These power generators are the cornerstone of our modern society and have been supplying cheap electricity for homes and industry. Because of the current hostile Government attitude it is unlikely we will see the building of any new power stations before the green blackouts start when people start relying on the fallacious alternative energy alternative.
Unfortunately this economic self-mutilation may not stop with the probable change of government next year!

A new Galaxy poll reveals that one third of voters would be more likely to support Labor if they dumped the carbon tax. Dumping Gillard for Rudd would also improve electoral support but the Labor brand is so damaged now that it will be difficult for it to recover before the next election.

Co2 vs Global Temperature (from C3)

About Me

Retired Professional Electronics Engineer with specialist experience in design of power systems control ,revenue metering and electronics manufacturing. Throughout career held positions of university lecturer,professional design engineer,CEO and nurseryman.I am a keen bridge player and have special interests in the climate change fiasco, and the green energy disaster in progress.